Upon a Midnight Clear : A Delightful Collection of Heartwarming Holiday Stories : The Teacher Christmas Magic Jolly Holly If Only in My Dreams White Out

703 Pages·1998·2.6 MB·English

by  Jude Deveraux

UPON A
M l D N I G H T
CLEAR

Jude Deveraux
The Teacher

Chapter One
Legend, Colorado

"I don't see why—"
"Please don't say it again, Jeremy," his mother said,
then had to grab the side of the stagecoach to keep
from slamming into the fat, snoring man beside her.
Or perhaps beside wasn't the correct word. Even
before the man had fallen asleep he'd been trying to
get even closer to her than the tiny seat forced on
them. It didn't help matters that the man kept
swearing that she was "the prettiest little thing I ever
seen in my whole dad-gummed life," as he put it.
When Jeremy had closed his eyes, looking as though
he'd fallen asleep, the man had offered Kathryn an
extraordinary amount of money to spend just one
hour alone with him. "If you know what I mean."
Kathryn certainly did know, and her instinct
demanded she tell him she'd rather be boiled in oil
than have him touch her, but instead she'd smiled and
murmured that she was already "promised."
The man had patted her knee and said he
"understood." Maybe he did, but Kathryn didn't have
any idea what he meant. Was the American Wild
West so without morals that women did spend "just
one hour" with a man? As much as she wanted to
know, she wasn't about to ask. However, the man's
intimate interest in Kathryn de Longe and her son
was why they were now speaking in French.
"We could have stayed and fought," Jeremy said,
looking up at his mother with eyes much too old for
his mere nine years.
Kathryn had no answer for him because over the
last weeks she'd exhausted her supply of words. What
could she tell him that she hadn't already said? For
his entire nine years they had been running. Actually,
since Kathryn had had to escape Ireland when she
was pregnant, maybe she could say he'd been running
since before he was born. But no matter where they
went or how well they disguised themselves, the
O'Connor money always found them.
Now, Kathryn looked out at the steep mountainside
that fell away from the narrow road the stagecoach
was trying to climb. This barren, isolated place was
their last chance. Their very, very last chance.
Turning, she forced herself to smile at her son.
Since he was born she'd tried to protect him. Perhaps
she hadn't done a very good job, but she knew she'd
done her best. And maybe this time they could settle
down. Maybe this time they could stay in one place
for longer than three months.
When she'd bought her stage ticket (through a third
party so no one would remember a lone woman
buying a ticket), she'd asked a man about the
isolation of Legend, Colorado, and he'd laughed.
"Lady, there are places up in the Rockies that not
even God can find. And I figure Legend heads that
list." She hadn't smiled as he'd meant her to, but had
nodded solemnly. Yes, that sounded like the place she
needed.
It hadn't been so easy to persuade Jeremy to the
idea of living in an isolated mountain town, as he'd
liked Philadelphia very much. He was a quiet child
and studious. Like his father's people, Kathryn
thought with a melting of her heart. He was very
much like his father's uncle with his love of books
and music. And he had his father's taste in clothes.
And his father's good looks, she thought with a heavy
sigh. One look at Jeremy and there was no doubt
whose son he was.
"I'm sure there was some other way," Jeremy said
for the thousandth time. "We could have—"
"No!" Kathryn said sharply, then wanted to bite her
tongue. Part of her wanted to tell him the truth of
how bad the situation was, but another part wanted to
protect and shield him.
Sewn inside her corset was a wanted poster bearing
excellent likenesses of both her and Jeremy. The
poster said that she, Caitlin McGregor, was wanted
for thievery and attempted murder, and ten thousand
dollars was offered for information leading to her
apprehension. It further stated that she was dangerous
and should be treated as such.
You'd like that, wouldn't you, O'Connor, she
thought to herself. You'd like to see me behind bars.
Or better yet, led to the scaffold. You'd probably
dance at my hanging.
If she were caught, there would, of course, be no
appeal for her. Who would believe her over the
money of an O'Connor? Who would step forward and
defend her against such a man as he? Especially
when he was so very obviously Jeremy's father?
"I'm sure you'll like the place," Kathryn said
soothingly to her son. "I hear there's a library and
many entertainments are brought from Denver."
"Denver," Jeremy said with a sneer of contempt.
"Traveling players? And what do you think they have
in the library? Dime novels? Shall I read about Dead
Eye Dick?""It might do us both a bit of good to get
away from the rarified air of Philadelphia for a while.
And we might like it here. Stranger things have
happened."
Jeremy just snorted and looked out the window at
the beautiful, but empty, mountain scenery.
Kathryn wanted to isolate herself in this
godforsaken place about as much as her son did.
They'd been in Philadelphia nearly three and a half
months, and they had begun to make friends. There
had even been a man…
But Kathryn wouldn't allow herself to think of that.
She knew when she'd run away from Ireland with
Sean O'Connor's child in her belly that she'd never be
able to have a normal life, a life with a man and a
house and maybe other children and—
"Mother!" Jeremy said sharply. "You have that look
on your face again."
Kathryn smiled as she reached across the narrow
aisle and took his hand in hers. She knew she'd been
wearing what Jeremy called her "dreamy look" when
she was far away. She'd told him she was thinking of
the sweet greenness of Ireland when she had that
look. Better that than to tell him the truth of how she
dreamed of a home and husband and safety. No, she
couldn't tell Jeremy that, for, knowing him, he'd think
she could have those things if it weren't for him and
he'd run away. Again.
With a tiny shake of her head, Kathryn leaned back
against the seat and looked at her son in awe. He had
the refined, aristocratic look of the O'Connors, a look
that had taken generations of breeding to achieve. He
had long, thin fingers that looked as though they were
meant to hold a lace handkerchief. But Kathryn knew
the truth. At Jeremy's own insistence, he'd taken
boxing lessons (free in exchange for Jeremy's writing
letters home for the boxer) and she knew what a
punch he could make with those hands.
From the way he was dressed, Jeremy looked as
though he'd never seen the outside of a drawing
room. No one would guess that they had lived all
their lives in tenements where the smell of cabbage
always surrounded them. Jeremy had witnessed his
first murder when he was one year old, after he'd
wandered into a street brawl between two drunken
sailors.
It was when he was four that Kathryn finally
decided to return him to Sean O'Connor. She was
going to take him back to Ireland and allow his
father's family to raise him. What did it matter if she
were hanged for kidnapping? What did it matter that
Sean's family were the coldest, most ruthless people
she'd ever met? At least Jeremy would be safe with
them in Ireland. And safe was all that mattered to her;
That was the first time Jeremy ran away. Four years
old and he ran away from home for three days.
Kathryn had been insane with worry, not eating or
sleeping for those three days. The police had been no
help. What did they care that some slum kid had
disappeared? They had leered at Kathryn and offered
to give her another child.
After three days Jeremy had sauntered home, clean,
well fed, and said that he was not going back to
Ireland, that he wanted to live with his mother, and if
she tried to send him away, he'd run away again.
That had been five years ago, and since then the
two of them had been on the run. But this year
Jeremy had been feeling as though he were grown-up
and so wanted to stay and fight his father. "He has no
claim over me since you never married him," he'd
said several times.
Kathryn had tried to explain about money being
able to buy anything, but for all the prematurely
gained wisdom in his eyes, Jeremy still had a child's
belief in justice.
When she'd been offered the job of tutor to a nine-
year-old boy in the remote, isolated mountain town of
Legend, Colorado, it had seemed like a dream come
true. She was to be the teacher of Zachary Jordan,
son of Mr. Cole Jordan. And maybe, just maybe, in
this remote town, they'd achieve what had become
the most beautiful of words to her: safety.

"This is it?" Jeremy said with contempt as he
stepped down from the stage. "This is what we left
civilization for?"
"Jeremy, I really don't care for your tone of voice.
And I'm sure this is the… the…"
"Red-light district?" he asked, sidestepping as the
stage driver threw their small trunks to the ground.
Kathryn drew in her breath and stared at the awful
place around them. There seemed to be nothing but
saloons and gambling houses as far as one could see.
Noise, dirt, unwashed men, raucously laughing
women, great wagons full of rocks, horses and
manure, filled the place. There didn't seem to be
anything clean or even decent as far as she could see.
In front of her was a garish, gaudily painted sign that
had a woman's leg wearing a black stocking and a
frilly garter. What looked to be a high-heeled
bedroom shoe dangled from the toe and the place was
called The Lady Slipper. Kathryn didn't have time to
look at other signs because she had to step back as a
dirty man with graying whiskers made a lunge for
her.
"Me first," he said, then when Kathryn sidestepped,
he fell into the mud at her feet.
If Kathryn had had so much as two dollars to her
name she would have climbed back onto the
stagecoach and ridden away, as far from this den of
iniquity as possible. Instinctively, she put her arm
around Jeremy and drew him closer—as though she
could protect him from what she was seeing, hearing,
and smelling.
With her arm still around Jeremy, she looked at the
stage driver, who was climbing back onto the box.
"Can you take us out of here?" she asked.
"You bet, lady, for fifty bucks each. In cash."
"I dont have—"
He didn't let her finish but just chuckled. "Thought
not. Well, there're plenty of ways for a pretty gal like
you to earn money in Legend. Giddyup!"
Coughing from the dust of the rapidly departing
stage, Kathryn turned back around, the two of them
standing alone in the middle of the wide, foul street,
three small trunks at their feet. Kathryn didn't have
time to think about an alternate plan because a wagon
drawn by six horses was coming straight toward
them. With one quick gesture she thrust a case at
Jeremy, grabbed the other two, and ran for the safety
of the boardwalk.
But just as they stepped in front of the saloon, a
man came flying through the glass window and hit
the boardwalk, then rolled into the street, where two
men on horses nearly trampled him. Dropping her
cases, Kathryn grabbed Jeremy, his back pressed
against her front as she tried to pull both of them into
the safety between the door and the window. When a
shot rang out, she tightened her grip on Jeremy.
Out of the saloon door came a man, his back to her,
but she could see the power of his build: shoulders so
thick they curved round to his chest, a taut waist with
a decorated knife sheath at his side.
"You ever show up in this town again, Bartlett, and
you'll answer to me," the big man said to the one in
the dirt.